HP to Distribute Live Search Toolbar on 2009 HP Consumer PCs

Microsoft Corp. has announced that its has reached an agreement with HP to install a toolbar which will be enabled by Live Search on all HP consumer PCs intended to be shipped in US and Canada by the beginning of January 2009. The default search engine settings in the browser of all HP consumer PCs will also be set to Microsoft Live Search.

“This agreement with HP is a strategic indicator of our increased focus on securing broad-scale distribution for Live Search,” said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft. “This is the most significant distribution deal for Live Search that Microsoft has ever done, and we are very pleased to be partnering with HP to help bring Live Search to millions of consumers across North America.”

No matter how giant you are in this industry, there are certain basics one should always stick to. This is what Microsoft is doing right now i.e. Using The Power of Default which is certainly a good idea. What we have to see now is whether it will be good enough to compete with Google (seems unlikely as Google has more than 65% of the US search market)? Now when they have concluded deal with HP, they should concentrate on improving their search engine. Lets hope we see some healthy competition in the market.